Lieutenant-Commander Bruce Mackay

Lieutenant-Commander Bruce Mackay, who has died aged 77, was an explosives,
mining and diving specialist in the Falklands conflict, during which he
commanded the mysterious unit known as Naval Party 1880.

Mackay was in the amphibious warfare ship Intrepid when she sailed from Ascension Island on May 8 1982. Over the next three weeks some dozen ships were damaged and sunk. By the time Intrepid had reached San Carlos three weeks later, Mackay was, as he later recalled, “not the only one with his fingers crossed”.

On May 31 Mackay’s Naval Party 1880 was ordered to use Intrepid’s landing craft to sweep for mines in the entrance to Teal Inlet, on the north coast of East Falkland, in preparation for landings there in support of 45 Commando Royal Marines.

The Falklands were too far away to send proper minesweepers , and the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment had improvised two sets of the Assault Minesweeping System Mk 1, comprising large magnets and noisemaking devices, each of which would create a magnetic and acoustic signature similar to a British landing craft, setting off any mines laid by the Argentines.

The landing craft were strongly magnetic, heavy and difficult to manoeuvre, and the equipment had to be towed only a short distance astern. Finding it difficult to get the noisemakers to sink, Mackay attached heavy concrete sinkers (weights). Meanwhile, the compass in his craft was rendered useless by the strong magnetic field of the equipment, making navigation problematic.

Knowing that if he set off a mine his own craft might be badly damaged, Mackay nevertheless swept the centre of the channel by night, mooring at first light and hiding during the day in a sheepshearing shed. As darkness fell on June 1, he returned down the channel, taking a route which he thought was at greatest risk from mines. He then made a third pass through the narrows until he could make no progress against the ebbing tide. With sea conditions deteriorating, Mackay sank the magnets on the seabed, before rendezvousing with Intrepid in the early hours of June 2.

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In his report Mackay wrote that all the men of Naval Party 1880 had “carried out their duties in a highly professional and efficient manner, well aware of the risks to their own safety in possibly mined waters and knowing that if their sweep had actuated a mine, their craft would undoubtedly have been sunk”.

He was mentioned in despatches.

Iain Bruce Mackay was born on November 19 1934 and educated at St Edward’s, Oxford. After failing the Admiralty Interview Board for entry to Dartmouth, he signed on as a boy seaman (second class) just before his 16th birthday. He later recalled that, having been a boarder at St Edward’s, he found life under training at the Navy’s new-entry establishment, HMS Ganges, “very easy”.

Over the next five years he concentrated on enjoying himself — later confessing that he had “switched off” — until an officer in the carrier Eagle “read the Riot Act over me”, motivating him to study hard for his GCEs. He was commissioned in 1957.

By 1960 Mackay was a lieutenant and a ship’s diver, and three years later he qualified as a clearance diver and was given command of the inshore mine hunter Dingley . In 1966 he commanded the minesweeper Iveston, and in 1973 was officer in charge of the Scotland and Northern Ireland Bomb Disposal Team. From 1975 to 1977 he was first lieutenant of the frigate Londonderry and he then served two years as commanding officer of the training ship Dee . In 1980 Bruce was seconded to the US Navy to experiment with underwater explosives.

After the Falklands conflict Mackay worked on further weapons trials until 1991, when he retired to Somerset.

He married, in 1963, Cynthia Fraser-Harris, who survives him with their three daughters.